Chapter 226 Missionary

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library. After Lin Hong just found the posix standard and took it down, he happened to see a strange person he had seen at the door before in the hole.

Through the book hole, the other party smiled at Lin Hong.

Lin Hong had to nod his head.

The weirdo circled from the side. His eyes rested on the posix standard in Lin Hong's hand, and his eyes seemed to be strange to Lin Hong's borrowing this set of books.

"Hello, I'm Richard Stallman" The weirdo took the initiative to introduce himself to Lin Hong.

"Hello." Lin Hong paused for a moment, and then added, "stone."

"Have you heard of posix before?"

"Yes. I learned about this set of books from a friend. I searched for a long time before I found it here.

After all, the two were not familiar with each other. They just met by chance in the library. After answering each other's questions, Lin Hong came to the reading room on the side of the library with books in his arms. Richard was obviously interested in Lin Hong and followed him.

Lin Hong first took a general look at the posix standard and found that the content is indeed very detailed, specifying the api of a series of application software under the unix system in detail, of course, including system calls.

There is too much content in these four books, and Lin Hong does not intend to implement all the commands in these four books. He just took a quick look at the table of contents and selectively selected some chapters to watch.

He didn't take notes, but decided to memorize all these contents and think about it when he went back.

Lin Hong is confident that he can do this, and memory has always been his strength.

Richard observed for a long time, and finally took advantage of Lin Hong's change of books, he finally couldn't help interrupting, "Can you understand?"

Lin Hong nodded: "These are the standards of api. They are not designed with specific implementation codes, and it is not difficult to understand."

"Can you tell me the purpose of looking at these standards?"

"Well, my friend and I are going to write a simple operating system. I heard that there are many api standards compatible with unix on posix, so I'm here."

Lin Hong can feel that the other party seems to be very curious about himself.

"Write your own operating system?" Richard didn't expect Lin Hong's answer to be this. After being slightly stunned, he immediately sighed, "This is really a great ideal!" However, it is too difficult to redesign and implement an operating system. We have been working hard for this for several years, but the kernel of the system has not been able to meet our requirements.

confirmed his inner speculation, and Richard sat down beside Lin Hongdi.

This time, he officially introduced himself to Lin Hong, including his life and what he had done before, which was the way he always used to talk to others.

Obviously, his method is very effective.

After listening to the other party, Lin Hong knew that the middle-aged man in front of him, who was called a weirdo, turned out to be the founder of the gun project!

The famous "gnu declaration" was drafted and published by him.

That is to say, the posix standard also appeared under his advocacy, and gpl (gnu general public license agreement) was also written by him himself.

This made Lin Hong sigh that there are indeed many masters in mit. Such a unique freak is actually the father of the most famous free software in the hacker world!

Before, Lin Hong heard that this person often promotes free software to others. He thought that he was just a free software supporter, but he didn't expect that he was the originator of this field and a person with personality.

Richard was obviously very happy to see that Lin Hong had heard of free software. Since 1985, he has been like a missionary, promoting his free software concept to everyone. Now even a teenager has heard of his gun plan, which is indeed a happy thing. Love.

Richard immediately asked Lin Hong about his views on free software. Lin Hong had no problem with this. He thought that both free software and commercial software were good. As long as the commercial software was good enough, he was willing to pay for it.

Unexpectedly, this view was refuted by Richard for a long time. It's not good to say that such an idea is connivance to those commercial companies so that they can grow.

"All software should be freely copied and shared. We must understand every detail of the software, otherwise, unopen source software will make us free!"

"Our society is increasingly dependent on computers, and the software we use is crucial to ensuring the freedom of society in the future. Free software allows us to control the technology we use, so that it can benefit individuals and society, instead of allowing technology to be controlled by commercial companies or governments to restrict or monitor us..."

......

Richard was a little excited to sell his ideas to Lin Hong.

The students around saw him like this and moved away from the area until the "missionary" Richard began to spread his free software religion to others.

"Software is born to be free. The earliest hackers spread their own software in their own circles, but some people can't stand the money** and begin to restrict others from copying the software. If you want to use the software, you have to pay a high cost. This is definitely not the original intention of the software to be invented. ! ..."

In Richard's view, those software patents and the encryption and non-disclosure of software code are obstacles to the software industry and violate the spirit of software freedom.

Lin Hong found that Richard seemed to have a special appeal, which can make the audience's thoughts involuntarily follow his thoughts to think, so as to agree with his ideas.

"Programmers spend a lot of time writing software. Shouldn't they be paid?" After thinking for a while, Lin Hong asked.

It is obviously not the first time Richard has dealt with this kind of problem. He immediately replied, "Of course. But it is not to sell codes for remuneration, but to provide high-quality services. That is to say, from selling code as the center to selling services as the center. Look, by the end of this century or the next century, the software industry will definitely make great changes, and free software will be fully revived!"

Selling services?

Lin Hong said that he couldn't understand what he meant.

"The freedom of software is the freedom of mankind!" Richard said his main point, "If we don't want to lose our freedom completely in the future, we must develop free software. Software code is not only a commercial product, but more importantly, it is part of human freedom. If we want to defend freedom, we must support free software. You can use closed-source software, but you should support free software, because without it, there is no freedom for us, not only in the future, but now.

Software freedom = human freedom? Is it like this now?

This seemingly ridiculous equation and the last sentence made Lin Hong have a lot of associations.

He thought of the sas system, the aurora system, the people who may be being monitored... and also thought of his own bit messenger software.

Maybe one day, when people's lives and computer software are inseparable, this equation will really make sense, right?

At that time, the government ruled that other people did not use violent institutions, police agencies, but only through software.

Then, his heart moved. Could it be that Richard knew something?

※※※※※

After Diana returned to the company, she was severely criticized by her boss, because she not only failed to complete the task, but also offended some members of Sam. Although it was remedied later, the overall situation still made the boss dissatisfied.

The key figure Stone has so far refused to sell them the infrared patent in his hand, which must have something to do with Diana's previous behavior.

Diana is very depressed about this.

Her approach can't be said to be wrong. In the commercial field, what she pays attention to is that she is not tired of cheating. In order to achieve the goal, everyone has all kinds of means. There is no problem with her strategy at all. Generally, she buys small companies, and sometimes she does take this way. The mistake she made was that she didn't fully understand the specific situation of Sam.

Diana never thought that such a small company was so complicated that it was not only divided into associations and companies, but also the patents of key technologies were in private hands, which was the main reason for her failure.

In a depressed mood, Diana went to a Blue Mountain Cafe that she often goes to. The Blue Mountain coffee here is the most authentic. I heard that it was shipped directly from Brazil. Diana likes the taste of Blue Mountain coffee.

She found a window seat, and then ordered a cup of original Blue Mountain coffee as usual, so she quietly looked out of the window and thought about what was on her mind, thinking about how to buy the infrared patent from the Chinese teenager at a price that satisfied her boss.

"Hi, Diana, it's a coincidence."

A middle-aged man in a professional suit came to Joanna and greeted her enthusiastically.

This man's name is Miller. He works in Intel. Diana once cooperated with each other, so they know each other.

"Yes, what a coincidence." Diana had a professional smile on her face.

"Can I sit here?" Miller asked very gentlemanly..

"Please feel free." Diana looked around. It is true that there are only a lot of vacant seats here, not to mention that the other party is also an acquaintance. Although she wants to be quiet at this moment, she is likely to deal with the other party in the future. Naturally, she will not offend others with her nature.

After ordering a cup of coffee, Miller casually asked, "How are you doing?"

"Let's be sloppy." Diana said perfunctorily.

"You don't seem to be very happy today. It's not like your character. Is there anything unhappy at work? You might as well say it, you may feel better. I think I will be a qualified listener.

"It's okay, little thing. Just because a patent acquisition case was not negotiated, I was just scolded by the boss.

"Oh? Isn't this a normal thing? We run outside every day, and the boss should be considerate of us. If we haven't made a good talk, we can continue to talk about it. Miller said along Diana's way.

"Two days ago, I went to Boston to complete an acquisition project assigned by the boss..."

Diana slowly told Miller about her failed journey. Although it was just a simple narration, she felt that she was indeed much better in her heart, and she was not as depressed as before.

However, what she didn't notice was that when Miller heard her talk about the specific parameter performance of the infrared wireless protocol used by Sam, his eyes suddenly lit up at that moment.